San Francisco Fed President Williams Favors Further Openness

The head of a regional Federal Reserve bank says the Fed should consider taking further steps to be more publicly transparent.

John Williams, president of the San Francisco Fed, says he would favor requiring each Fed official to spell out his or her forecast for where interest rates are headed. Those forecasts could then be connected to each member's predictions for economic growth, unemployment and inflation.

"It could be useful to connect the dots for the public," Williams said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Currently, the Fed reveals the forecasts of members of its policymaking committee. But it doesn't say which official made each forecast.

Under Ben Bernanke, the Fed has made public openness a priority. Bernanke, for example, is the first chairman to hold quarterly news conferences.